Are home schooled Christians dangerous?

[OccamsRazor]

In a recent New Scientist article about the rise of home schooling by creationist Christians in the US I noticed the following:

Science Order and Reality published by A Beka Book: "Because most environmental scientists see the universe and even life itself as mere products of chance, it is easy for them to visualise potentially catastrophic changes occurring on the Earth. As Christians we must remember that God provided certain 'checks and balances' in creation to prevent many of the global upsets that have been predicted by environmentalists." For those who still worry about global warming, another A Beka book, Science of the Physical Creation, flatly denies it is happening: "All of the scientific evidence gathered indicates that there is no danger of a global warming disaster."

Should children be taught such things as 'science'? This suggests that these children will grow up without any sense of personal responsibility, rather with the overriding belief that 'God will sort it out'.

Surely such children should be provided with the evidence so that they may make their own decision. Such beliefs that these people do not have to work toward averting ecological disaster is surely a hinderance to the rest of us.

The questions here are therefore:
1. Should children be taught such unscientific 'facts' as if they were scientifically justified?
2. Is such Christianity detrimental to humanity?
3. If so (with regard to 2) then is this the fault of Christianity or religion or is it rather the fault of extremism?

(Edited: Clarified the wording of question #1)

[Vladd44]

For example, in regards to global warming, I would disagree that it's necessarily a problem. And even in the scientific community, there is not a consensus that there is a problem.

I would have to take strong issue here. Consensus has been reached, a few crackpots with their own agenda is hardly evidence of lack of consensus.

But then again, we can continue to pollute our enviroment and chant loudly that its not a problem, but it doesn't take much understanding to realize that what we do affects the world around us. We are already beginning to see a reduction in artic life and as dwindling food supplies continue, I fear what will become of our oceans.

Well, it bothers me that people should tell me how I should homeschool my kids. And if Christians are not to have any say in allowing non-evolutionary teachings in public schools, then this is one reason why Christians have decided to pull their children out of public school.

So you think it is ok for a parent to teach their children anything they choose? If so, why not just go back to the flat earth concept?

As far as christians pulling their children out of schools, I fully support the idea. The more christians with subpar educations there are, the less likely they are to be able to support families. Perhaps this trend will help breed christianity out of the species entirely.

And why should not parents be allowed to exercise complete freedom over the upbringing of their own children (as long as it's within the limits of the law)?

I would not want laws inhibiting what parents teach their children, but I can still be shocked when people teach foolish things.

A racist has the right to pass the hatred torch on, but I don't think its a good thing.

A 6x24 creationist can pass their absurdity as well, but I doubt it is fair to their child.

So, though evolutionists would rather for nobody to question evolution,

Evolutionists question themselves all the time, the very concept of evolution evolves. It is the unwavering position of creationists that seem unable to take questions.

Personally I have mixed feelings about Home schooling in general. In some ways I really like the idea, and with the violence level in many schools who could blame parents for not wanting to send their children to them.

What concerns me is most homeschooled children I know are not getting the education they should. My cousin's mom did well enough for him to do great in college, but his social skills are so poor I wonder if he is even capable of a normal life.

[Cathar1950]

Often they do seem like a reactionary response to change.
But they are all right as long as they don't run with scissors.
If you look at the history of schools you know they were trying to keep kids off the street out of the Job market as they prepared them for corporate use.
Also it seems some were worried about pocket pool.

.

[Abiele777]

In a recent New Scientist article about the rise of home schooling by creationist Christians in the US I noticed the following:

Should children be taught such things as 'science'? This suggests that these children will grow up without any sense of personal responsibility, rather with the overriding belief that 'God will sort it out'.

Surely such children should be provided with the evidence so that they may make their own decision. Such beliefs that these people do not have to work toward averting ecological disaster is surely a hinderance to the rest of us.

The questions here are therefore:
1. Should children be taught such unscientific 'facts' as if they were scientifically justified?
2. Is such Christianity detrimental to humanity?
3. If so (with regard to 2) then is this the fault of Christianity or religion or is it rather the fault of extremism?

(Edited: Clarified the wording of question #1)

1. Should children be taught such unscientific 'facts' as if they were scientifically justified?

Of course not. And of course these unscientific facts will include much of what is taught as evidence for Evolution!

2. Is such Christianity detrimental to humanity? Again, of course not. Christian thought has profoundly benefitted humankind. The rise of Science itself, and the scientific method arose from the Christian belief that God made the cosmos using on sound rational primciples using great wisdom. In their attacks on Christian creationists, todays' scientists are biting the hand that created and fed the sciences.

Question 1:
I do not believe children should be taught science from books with an overtly religious agenda. Have you ever seen the movie Jesus Camp? In it there is a scene which shows an evangelical mother homeschooling her children. The child is maybe 8-9 yet he is already being "taught" about such things as global warming (its all an evil conspiracy of the evolutionists.) These things are rote learned and when he is asked questions about material he just spouts back almost word for word the creationist propaganda contained therin.
This sort of teaching seems actively designed to discourage critical thinking which IMO is the most important thing a child can learn.

I really doubt that homeschooled kids are being taught that global warming is the result of an evil conspiracy caused by evil evolutionists. And what in the world do creationists have to do with global warning?

The facts on global warming are well known. The earth's atmosphere has been more or less warming up ever since the end of the little ice age that lasted from 1370 to 1900. The cause of this warming up is due to increases in the suns radiation this past century. However, we are still about 7 degrees (Fahrenheit) colder than the temperature of the earths atmosphere in 1200 AD. This warm spell lasted from around 970 AD until 1370 AD. During the medieval warm period, the vikings settled Greenland (and it was green back then) and explored North America, the Chinese sailed around North America above Alaska and Northern Canada, England was wine country, Norway (vikings) and Sweden had population explosions and became world powers, etc..

Unfortunately, atmospheric science has been hijacked by political special interests groups, sensationalists, and the UN. Perhaps it is the opposition to this "hijacking" that conservative Christians (and others) oppose after they have soundly applied their critical thinking to the possible causes of Global Warming and separated truth from falsehoods.

Global Warming does raise the water levels throughout the world, this would force some people now living in areas that will be flooded to either build flood walls, or even better, move to higher ground. Some deserts will expand, but rainfall will increase, hurricanes will be more severe, tornados less severe, large tracts of land in Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia will become farm land, tropical vegetables and fruit will be grown further away from the equator. Overall, it appears that Global warming may be more beneficial than harmful. Then again, we may enter another ice age. It all depends on our sun.

2:
Short answer, Yes. Its not like we need more people with closed minds in the world.

The irony here is that this generalization is - a very close minded statement

3:
I would say religion in general discourages critical thought but in this case it is definitely the fault of this extremist group.

Just the opposite for Christianity, critical thought is encouraged. Paul encouraged those to whom he preached that they should not take his word for it, but to test it and determine if it is consistent with OT scriptures. He praised those who did question him and made the effort test the accuracy of what he preached. Jesus made the same appeal in several of his sermons. True Christians are most familiar with, and readily employ, critical thought in their search for truth.

[Lainey]

Just the opposite for Christianity, critical thought is encouraged. Paul encouraged those to whom he preached that they should not take his word for it, but to test it and determine if it is consistent with OT scriptures.

"Test (Paul's word) and determine if it is consistent with OT scriptures."

And where is the critical thinking about the OT scriptures themselves? What do you test them against?

Where did you get your "facts" about global warming? I want to see your sources.

[Abiele777]

Just the opposite for Christianity, critical thought is encouraged. Paul encouraged those to whom he preached that they should not take his word for it, but to test it and determine if it is consistent with OT scriptures.

"Test (Paul's word) and determine if it is consistent with OT scriptures."

And where is the critical thinking about the OT scriptures themselves? What do you test them against?

Where did you get your "facts" about global warming? I want to see your sources.

I knew about these matters at least three decades ago when the drive by media was hollering "woe to the world, human activity is causing the planet Earth to enter into a disastrous ne Ice Age.

For Starters:

To: National Desk Contact: Sean Tuffnell of the National Center for Policy Analysis,972-308-6481 or sean.tuffnell@ncpa.org WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- David Deming, an associate professorat the University of Oklahoma and an adjunct scholar with the NationalCenter for Policy Analysis (NCPA), testified this morning at a specialhearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The hearingexamined climate change and the media. Bellow are excerpts from his preparedremarks. "In 1995, I published a short paper in the academic journal Science. In thatstudy, I reviewed how borehole temperature data recorded a warming of aboutone degree Celsius in North America over the last 100 to 150 years. The weekthe article appeared, I was contacted by a reporter for National PublicRadio. He offered to interview me, but only if I would state that thewarming was due to human activity. When I refused to do so, he hung up onme. "I had another interesting experience around the time my paper in Sciencewas published. I received an astonishing email from a major researcher inthe area of climate change. He said, "We have to get rid of the MedievalWarm Period." "The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of unusually warmweather that began around 1000 AD and persisted until a cold period known asthe "Little Ice Age" took hold in the 14th century. ... The existence of theMWP had been recognized in the scientific literature for decades. But now itwas a major embarrassment to those maintaining that the 20th century warmingwas truly anomalous. It had to be "gotten rid of." "In 1999, Michael Mann and his colleagues published a reconstruction of pasttemperature in which the MWP simply vanished. This unique estimate becameknown as the "hockey stick," because of the shape of the temperature graph."Normally in science, when you have a novel result that appears to overturnprevious work, you have to demonstrate why the earlier work was wrong. Butthe work of Mann and his colleagues was initially accepted uncritically,even though it contradicted the results of more than 100 previous studies.Other researchers have since reaffirmed that the Medieval Warm Period wasboth warm and global in its extent. "There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding the issue ofglobal warming. In the past two years, this bias has bloomed into anirrational hysteria. Every natural disaster that occurs is now linked withglobal warming, no matter how tenuous or impossible the connection. As aresult, the public has become vastly misinformed."

Now check these url's out:

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm

http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/Boon_To_Man.html

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2Sc ... /Index.jsp

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2Sc ... p/mwpp.jsp

http://www.spirasolaris.ca/sbb4g1bv.html



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... warm05.xml

[Saros]

I really doubt that homeschooled kids are being taught that global warming is the result of an evil conspiracy caused by evil evolutionists. And what in the world do creationists have to do with global warning?

I never claimed to know what homeschooled kid's are being taught. I was clearly refering to one scene in the "Jesus Camp" documentary.

2:
Short answer, Yes. Its not like we need more people with closed minds in the world.


The irony here is that this generalization is - a very close minded statement

Yes it is fairly ironic. I was attempting to express my opinion and due to a severe lack of time was unable to elaborate. Note the "short answer."

Just the opposite for Christianity, critical thought is encouraged. Paul encouraged those to whom he preached that they should not take his word for it, but to test it and determine if it is consistent with OT scriptures. He praised those who did question him and made the effort test the accuracy of what he preached. Jesus made the same appeal in several of his sermons. True Christians are most familiar with, and readily employ, critical thought in their search for truth.

yes its a pity we don't have more of these True Christians TM

[Vladd44]

1. Should children be taught such unscientific 'facts' as if they were scientifically justified?

Of course not. And of course these unscientific facts will include much of what is taught as evidence for Evolution!

What unscientific "facts" might those be? Simply pointing in a direction and yelling unscientific doesn't make it so.

The unravelling of mitocondrial DNA has put forward an incredible amount of evidence to at least strongly imply the idea of common aancestry DNA in general has shown more commonality than we would have ever considered.

I do not understand why christians are so reactionary as a whole to the idea of the evolutionary process, it does not have to be considered incompatible with christian ( or any other theistic) belief. I can only assume that what causes this is a literal interpretation of Genesis 1.

Genesis 1 is clearly not intended as a literal interpretation of an event, why treat it as such? If christians are right about their god, it still would mean that a physical procedure was put into place to actualize your gods agenda of creation.

Christian thought has profoundly benefitted humankind.

I hesitated to post comments regarding your post, I wrote a long post yesterday, but deleted it due to it coming across as a indictment against all of christianity. It is difficult to counter such ridiculous comments without doing so.

I could rehash all the old arguments about christianity, bring up scientific repressions such as Galileo, remind you of the 'Christian benefits" of the crusades, bring up the forward thinking of the inquisition, the burning of 'witches', the bombing of abortion clinics or even the killing of christians by christians for not being 'christian' enough.

But doing so would negate the impact of groups like the quakers who have taken a cconsistentposition against war and violence. It would also overlook individuals such as Mother Teresa (Even though I am sure there are some 'true christians' out there that would not define her as a christian).

The reality is often religion reflects little more than an excuse for the behavior people choose themselves. Whether for good or bad it is often the rationalization rather than the cause. Some christians were abolitionists in the civil war, and used it to 'justify' their cause, while christian ministers in some areas preached that slavery was legitimized by the same bible.

The rise of Science itself, and the scientific method arose from the Christian belief that God made the cosmos using on sound rational primciples using great wisdom. In their attacks on Christian creationists, todays' scientists are biting the hand that created and fed the sciences.

Once again, sounds great, but hardly accurate.

Aristotle (384–322 B.C) was the creator of the scientific method. I hardly think we can call him a christian. Nor would I call the ancient greeks christians.

Global Warming does raise the water levels throughout the world, this would force some people now living in areas that will be flooded to either build flood walls, or even better, move to higher ground. Some deserts will expand, but rainfall will increase, hurricanes will be more severe, tornados less severe, large tracts of land in Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia will become farm land, tropical vegetables and fruit will be grown further away from the equator. Overall, it appears that Global warming may be more beneficial than harmful.

First let me be the first from New Orleans to thank you for letting us know these are good things.

I am in awe of your ability to overlook that which dodoesn'tit into your desired view. I am of the belief that the earth will correct its current problem, but I am not so sure humanity will complete the trip.

Just the opposite for Christianity, critical thought is encouraged. Paul encouraged those to whom he preached that they should not take his word for it, but to test it and determine if it is consistent with OT scriptures.

I hardly think comparing one unsubstantiated document with another unsubstantiated issue would fit the definition of 'critical thought'.

True Christians are most familiar with, and readily employ, critical thought in their search for truth.

Got to love those true christians, I hear a lot about them, but it seems who exactly they are depends on who is talking about them.

[bernee51]

Global Warming does raise the water levels throughout the world, this would force some people now living in areas that will be flooded to either build flood walls, or even better, move to higher ground.

"Some people" = 144 million in Bangladesh and around 100 million in India, alone.

And then there are major coastal cities in the developed world.

I'm sure, as a True Christian (tm) you will be willing to offer them some 'higher ground' in your backyard.

Overall, it appears that Global warming may be more beneficial than harmful.

beneficial to whom? harmful to who

[Saros]

Abiele777, you should really look up the "no true scotsman" logical fallacy sometime. It really applies to you.